Items Description of Module

Subject Name Management

Paper Name Organisational Change and Development
Module Title Level of Organizational Change: System Change
Module Id Module No:- 04
Pre- To understand how to facilitate the system change in an organization
Requisites
Objectives To Study the various organizational development interventions at system
level
Keywords Structural re-organization, Job Redesign, Quality of work life
 QUADRANT-I
Module 03: Levels of Organizational Change : System Change
1. Learning Outcomes
2. Introduction
3. Managing Organizational Change: At System Level

4. Organizational Developmental Interventions: At System Level

5. Summary

1. LEARNING OUTCOMES
After studying the entire text students will be able to understand:
 Meaning and importance of organizational change at system level.
 Organizational development interventions at system level.
 Importance of various measures included in structure and task interventions for
managing change at system level.

2. INTRODUCTION:
Progress is not possible without change and those who cannot change their minds cannot
change anything.
-George Barnat Shaw
Business entities along with their human resource working in the organization can only
benefits themselves with the evolving environmental development when they are equally
responsive to the developments and changes that are taking place. Here, it is pertinent to
mention that when we are talking about change, it means changes that are managed in a
planned manner. Planned changes show an intentional effort on the part of management
to shift from present condition to the desired expected one. It is a deliberate design and
implementation of structural innovation, a new policy, new organizational climate or
style. In the present scenarios, transformational changes managed by transformational
leadership, are more necessary to survive and thrive effectively. When we are talking
about the changes in the system of organization it means we are considering changes
structural and administrative redesigning to remain in common with the changing
environment. While doing so, organization must be facing resistances which can be
removed by introducing structural and task interventions to be in same line with the
change forces.

In particular, the text is going to give a brief view of the concept of large scale system
change. In this, the focus is primarily on examining the structural interventions that are
basically labeled as organizational development interventions.

3. MANAGING ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE: AT SYSTEM LEVEL

Organization change at the system level simply, conveys that it includes a broad range of
interventions or change initiatives on the part of the management to improvise the
organizational effectiveness through modifying the task, structure, technology and goal
processes in organization. When we are dealing with the system change, it implies that
the management is striving to change the divisions, units, methods, procedure of working
flow as well as existing reporting pattern.

All the changes in the structural pattern are not possible without the cooperation and
support of the people working in the organization, who usually restrict change because of
their comforting position in the organization. In other words, to modify, any structural or
system element, management need complete participation of the employees working in
the organization, for the reason that they are the only one who are operating at the
existing system.

The management of organizational change is highly systematic set of activities which is

exclusively concentrated with alterations in the present established system without much
disturbing the ongoing activities of the organization. That is why; the process which is
followed by the change agent in managing the system change is proactive in nature. The
managers here monitor the environmental developments continuously so as to identify
the emerging opportunities and find out the adequacy of the existing policies, strategies
and programmes to exploit the opportunities and enhance according to environmental
developments.
4. ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT INTERVENTIONS: AT SYSTEM
LEVEL

When we are discussing the system of the organization, it means we are focusing on the
structure, task as well as the people who together contribute to become a whole
organizational system, structure, task and people are constantly correlated by each other
in the sense that the work processes which flows different channels to different people
follows a certain pattern of structural relationship. These components parts or divisions of
the organization working together constitute its structure. The system of the organization
affects a number of things:

 Cost of operation: Any operational activity which took a long time or go through
multiple stage or process to accomplish can prove to be hurdle in the
implementation of the change. In that case, structure is going to be more complex
and the cost of operating the change activities are going to be high.
 Speed of implementation: If there is more complexity in the system, then it is
going to be difficult for the management to any change for the simple reason that
the whole process is going to be slow which will hamper the processing of other
activities.
 Behavioral responses of people: Any system change tends to have a certain kind
of effect on the pre-established organizational culture. Work-force which is
working in the organization does get affected by any change which disturbs the
pre-established notions. Therefore, mangers do need to take care of making a
relevant equilibrium while implementing any change.

Organizational development is basically considered as a long term method to bring

change in the organization in a planned manner. It is a kind of journey which tries an
organization to move from where it is now to where it should be tomorrow. The
organizational developmental interventions that are applied to facilitate the organizational
change can be categorized as:

A. Structural Interventions
B. Task Interventions.
The above mentioned interventions are explained in detail as follows:

A. Structural Interventions
These are introduced to make organizations more systematically coordinated and
equal with the changes that are taking place. These actions include structural
reorganization, introduction of new reward system and efforts to change
organizational culture.
(i) Structural Reorganization: As the name suggests, it aims to modify the existing
organizational setup according to the required organizational change in order to
achieve effectiveness. Now, a time has arrived that the businesses are moving to opt
more flat and lean structure promoting increased interactions between managerial and
non-managerial employees. Reorganization also includes an essential form of
decentralization which promotes pushing more responsibilities along with all the
authority of doing task to downward level for the employee development and
enhancement. It provides the lower level employees with greater autonomy over their
task. Another form of decentralization can be creating smaller organizational units
and then giving related authority to the employees increasing their responsibilities
and power regarding priority activities. One more kind of intervention that can be
introduced is in the form of modifications in the workflow and careful grouping of
specialties so as to improve productivity and morale.
(ii) New Reward System: As an initiative, a new reward system can be introduced in
order to five employees challenging objectives by replacing the traditional system of
graded salary structure with the new system linked with their respective
performances, individually as well as in groups. This new system can be further seen
from individual as well as from group perspective. When we are considering an
individual their reward must be linked with their specific targets which are being
assigned to them and then on the basis of results they must be paid. Similarly, when
we are considering individual as a part of the group then they must be paid
accordingly to their team based performances. This system will ensure an advantage
of more productivity and commitment from the employees.
(iii) Changing Organizational Culture: Organizational culture represents a common
perception held by the members of the organization. The culture existing within a
 organization influences the employee degree of satisfaction with their jobs as well as
level and quality of their performances. Managers play a vital role in deciding and
creating a cordial organizational culture. Managers must put to instill certain values in
the organization and develop a pattern of behavior that emerges as the foundation for
a sound organizational culture. If the employees are not satisfied with the culture
prevalent then they are sure to resist any change initiated to introduce. As a solution,
management must always strive hard to develop new cultural values which support
less managerial interferences, increased tolerance for risk and conflicts and encourage
open communication channels. In view of the different problems being encountered
because of the rigid organizational structure, now it is emphasized to develop more
flexible and responsive system to cater to the changes immediately.
(iv) MBO and Appraisal: Management by Objective is an organizational development
effort mainly focused on defining and setting the goals and after the task is
accomplished the performance of the individual is reviewed with the objective to
provide review for improvement. It basically focus on participative and transactional
analysis, in the sense that while setting objectives or the goals for individual,
subordinates are provided with the option of providing significant input and while
appraising the performance, a collaborative efforts works in the sense that it include
the participation of both superior as well as subordinates to appraise the whole
performance. In concrete terms, MBO serves as a collaborative initiative by the
management in the area of target setting and performance evaluation encouraging the
employees potential for the problem-solving and decision-making.
Management has come a long way from a unilateral and autocratic leadership pattern
to a participative form of leadership which ensures involvement of subordinate in the
process of decision-making. This, collaborative MBO focuses on eliminating the
discrepancies of previous structural deficiencies by including the following:
 A collaborative diagnosis of the organization problem.
 Subordinate participation in goal setting.
 Participation in the performance evaluation.
 Problem solving discussion with superior.
  Enhancing the life and career goals of individuals by collaborating individual
goals with organization.
(v) Quality Circle: The concept of quality circle is reported to be developed by
Kaoru Ishikawa of Tokyo University by integrating the technique with the theories of
American behavioral scientists such as Maslow, McGregor and Herzberg, thus, the
concept of quality circle was born. The Lockheed Missile and Space Company was the
first American firm to study the emergence of Japanese approach and to implement an
extensive program.
Quality circle is an arrangement consisting of group of 7 to 10 employees from a single
department or members of different departments, who voluntarily meet together at
regular interval of time to analyze and make suggestions about the product quality,
process control and other concerning problems. The meeting recommendations are
further forwarded to the management for the improvement.
The best part of the quality circle is that prior to the formation of the quality circle, the
volunteers who participate in the meetings are trained by quality circle experts. Their
training schedule consists of learning participative group discussions, communication
skills and group dynamics. The training also comprises of helping each quality circle to
integrate with the other circle and together draw meeting suggestions. Therefore,
favorable results are reported by encouraging the use of multi-functional quality circle.
(vi) Total Quality Management: The technique of total quality management simply
conveys of applying continuous quality management. It is a collective form of number of
organizational improvement techniques and approaches on including the quality circle,
quality control, process control; self managed teams & task force and encouraging the use
of collaborative efforts. The following feature are involved in the process of total quality
management :
 Total quality management puts more emphasis on customers that is, it puts
paramount effort to consider or reconsider people demand and expectation.
 It puts stress on analyzing and finding out the deviations in the manufacturing
products and improving them.
 It evaluates in regular terms and keeps on rating the competitive benchmarking of
the organization.
  Kaizen is also followed in the total quality management. It keeps on searching for
defects and continuously working in eliminating the same.
 It encourages participation and collaborative management.
 It usually put emphasis on encouraging a collaborative team work to collectively
encourage improvement efforts.
 Major emphasis is put on continuous training and development of the employees
B. Task Interventions
Task interventions seek to improve organizational effectiveness through redesigning
the tasks from some different prospect other than the traditional one. It includes job
redesign, change in socio-technical system and quality of work life.
(i) Job Redesign: Re-design, itself, calls for changing the existing pattern of doing job
in a new enhanced pattern. This can be used as a strategy to improve productivity and
increase satisfaction level of the employees. Following measures can be applied:
 Job rotation: It can be applied to overcome the boredom by bringing a change in
the existing job of the employees. It is a kind of diversification of activities for the
work force. These activities benefit the organization as well as the employees by
training them with diverse skill of doing different activities.
 Job enlargement: It is mainly used to motivate the employees and enhance their
abilities by adding up new task into their existing job. It is an effective tool adding
more challenging and meaningful work to the worker’s existing activities.
 Job enrichment: It is an attempt to enrich the components of job with greater
responsibilities, opportunities for achievements, recognition, learning etc. fulfilling
the esteem and self-actualization needs of the individuals.
(ii) Socio-Technical System: The term socio-technical system is mainly concerned with
making a batter relationship among the technology, organization structure and the
social interaction between employees. Socio-technical system mainly follows the
principle of “Participative Management” so that if any disruption ever affects the
organization dueto some structural and technological change, it is then supported by
the people working in the organization involving all of the direct or indirect
stakeholders, managers, experts, employees and operational workforce. This approach
help to enhance the productivity and organizational effectiveness by changing
 organization structure design and the technology simultaneously. This approach takes
due consideration into account that employees belonging to different social structure
find themselves comfortable while adjusting with the technological changes.
(iii) Quality of Work Life: It is one of the organization improvement efforts. The basic
feature of the quality of work life projects that it attempts to settle down multiple
dimensions related to employees at a time and introduce a mechanism that facilitate
the implementation of the change when the time arrives. Most of the Quality of Work
Life projects includes features like:
 Increasing the voluntary involvement of employee in decision-making.
 Giving recognition to the trade union working in the organization.
 Facilitating training and development program for employees.
 Using quality circle to discuss problem confronting.
 Ensuring the safety of employees.
 Organization of skill development programmes.
 Ensuring workers participation in management.
 Finalizing the work schedule in accordance with the demand of employees.

It is a kind of responsiveness of the organization towards its employees to develop a

mechanism in which employees have freedom to take participation in decision making
regarding designing their lives at work. It includes activities like adequate and fair
compensation, working environment, develop human capabilities, prospects of career
development etc.

5. SUMMARY
If we segregate the organization we will see it is composed of both system as well as
people who are facilitating the functioning of the system. Whenever, business entity
is confronted with any environmental changes, it needs to adjust its structure and
strategy accordingly, so that the established goals are achieved. Changes are such
transformations which brings with itself the uncertainty and insecurity not for the
people working but also for the organization structure also. Management needs to re-
engineer the whole organization structure suited to the environment. The changes in
 the organizational system include changes in the established pattern of relationship
among different units and decide how the exchanges between different units are to be
done. For this, different measures can be adopted which is best suiting the prevalent.

SELF-ASSESSMENT

1. What do you understand by organizational change at system level? Discuss its nature.
2. What are structural interventions? How does it aid the management in overcoming the
resistance to change?
3. How can task interventions improve organizational effectiveness?
4. Distinguish between structural interventions and task interventions of organizational
change.

Suggested Readings:

R.M. Srivastava, “Management Policy & Strategic Management”, Himalaya Publishing

House, New Delhi.

Stephen P. Robbins, “Essentials of Organizational Behavior”, Prentice Hall of India Pvt.

Ltd, New Delhi.

Dr. Ramakanta K. Patra, “Strategic Human Resource Management & Organizational

Development”, Himalaya Publishing House, 2011.
M.J. Mathew, “Fundamentals of Organizational Theory & Behavior” RBSA Publishers,
Jaipur, 2003.
P. Subba Rao, “Organizational Behavior”, Himalaya Publishing House, New Delhi, 2010.
Tupper Causey, Gene Deszca, “Toolkit for Organizational Change”, Sage Publications
India Pvt. Ltd. , New Delhi, 2007.
Lee Grossman, “The Change Agent” Amacon, New York, 1974.
C.S.V Murthy, “Change Management”, Himalaya Publishing House Pvt. Ltd. New Delhi,
2007.
Hitt, Miller, Colella, “Organizational Behavior: A Strategic Approach” Wiley India (P)
Ltd. New Delhi, 2006.
Wendell L.French, Cecil H.Bell Jr., Veena Vohra, “Organization Development” Pearson
Prentice Hall, India, 2013